NIAGARA FALLS — One of the least healthy areas of the city is about to get a shot in the arm.

Niagara University, in partnership with the city of Niagara Falls and the P2 Collaborative of Western New York, has been awarded an 18-month $300,000 grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation for the implementation of “Creating a Healthier Niagara Falls: A Neighborhood Empowerment Approach.”

The goal of the initiative is to improve the individual health and quality of life of residents in designated Niagara Falls neighborhoods by building a system of community-based resources and linkages.

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Statistics show that pregnancy rates and low birth weights in the city are the highest in Upstate New York. In addition, 37 percent of Falls residents are regular smokers, less than 50 percent of all seniors receive flu shots and the risk factors for diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure and arthritis are higher than the national rates. All of these statistics, and the lack of proactive preventive care, leads to a high reliance on emergency room care.

The first phase of the initiative will target residents living in the neighborhoods bounded by Main Street, Portage Road and Pine Avenue, where the need of preventive care and education is highest, according to statistics.

The grant award and project outline were announced during Monday’s city council meeting. Avery T. Bates, community outreach coordinator for Community Health Center of Buffalo, said the initiative’s first phase is expected to engage 800 residents. Following a performance evaluation, phase two would extend the boundary to include Ferry Avenue and reach an additional 1,100 residents. The final phase would add in Niagara Street and increase the number of targeted residents to 1,500, he said.

The initiative will run from July 1 of this year to Dec. 31, 2012.

“We’re doing this to improve the quality of life and the health of our neighbors,” Bates said, adding organizers are willing to provide public updates to the council every six months. “We want to make everyone aware of all the resources available to them.”

Implementation strategies will focus on leadership, environmental beautification, health and wellness, disease prevention and safety. According to a press release issued by Niagara University, the initiative will engage and build the capacity of residents to initiate projects that will improve their neighborhoods and create a healthy, livable and safe community. In addition, it will also alter how health care and human service agencies, municipal, community and faith-based organizations and local businesses work together to increase the likelihood of achieving the goals of the endeavor.

“This project is particularly important because a community’s sustainability and growth are intricately tied to the overall health and wellness of its residents,” said the Rev. Joseph Levesque, president of Niagara University.

Mayor Paul Dyster noted the “Creating a Healthier Niagara Falls” model has grown from an initial investment by city leaders in 2009 to create a task group, whose charge was to move from reactive, “emergent,” hospital-based care in which people only access the health care system when they are already sick, to proactive, “preventive,” community-based care.

The collaboration, which will include more than 30 community implementation partners specializing in health, livability and neighborhood safety, was formed in response to the severe health needs of the community as well as the increasing number of underinsured and uninsured patients who seek treatment during costly emergency room visits to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.

“One of the keys to success will be changing our own psychology as consumers to minimize the need to access emergency care, and make better use of primary and preventive care resources already in place,” Dyster said. “That sounds easy, but it isn’t. It takes a unified, coordinated, multi-disciplinary approach to bring about fundamental changes in human behavior.”